Synagogue from Porto

The Synagogue of the Portuguese Dreyfus Creates a YouTube Success

A video about the monumental Synagogue of Oporto, in Portugal, has become a success in YouTube. Just in 2 months, the video has had 290 thousand views from 130 countries.

Portugal, Portugal -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/02/2012 -- Built with donations from Jews all from over the world, the "Kadoorie Mekor Haim" Synagogue was inaugurated in 1938, a few meters from the German School. The Portuguese authorities rapidly placed large trees between the School and the Synagogue.

The leader of the Oporto Jewish Community was a Portuguese regular army officer: Captain Barros Basto. He was expelled from the Army for being a Jew and became known as the Portuguese Dreyfus. His name was officially posthumously rehabilitated by the Portuguese State in 2012, a decision that was welcomed by the Anti-Defamation League.

Captain Barros Basto's granddaughter, Isabel Ferreira Lopes is now the Vice President of the Jewish Community of Oporto (in Portuguese: "Comunidade Israelita do Porto"). Speaking to the Portuguese press, she stated: "In the year of my grandfather's rehabilitation, so will the Synagogue be morally rehabilitated'. The success of the video seems to prove it.

The "Kadoorie Mekor Haim" Synagogue is the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Oporto, which has as its Honorary President a great philanthropist of Shanghai, Sir Elly Kadoorie, who died in 1944.

Currently, the Jewish Community is guided by the philosophy of the Chabad Lubavitch and counts, among its members, with Jews of origins as diverse as Poland, Egypt, United States, India, Russia, Israel, Spain, Portugal and England. The Rabbi is from Argentina.